It is all obvious or trivial except…

Well, yes, but the thing is, you see…..

Senior Labour figures and the family of former party leader Michael Foot have reacted with anger over the re-emergence of the explosive claim that he was a paid Soviet informant.

Neil Kinnock, who succeeded Foot as Labour leader, said his predecessor had been a “passionate and continual critic of the Soviet Union” in response to the allegation that MI6 believed Foot had been a paid informant.

We do know that some were indeed actual Soviet agents within the Labour Party. In a manner in which we really didn’t have any of Hitler’s, nor Mussolini’s, in the Tories (Moseley was an offshoot of Labour of course). And if we widen our look to a bit more of the left the Morning Star was funded by Moscow gold or decades. And Richard Gott at The Guardian – he’s occasionally back in the fold, isn’t he?

That is, our question isn’t whether there were such paid agents and informants around. It’s only over who they were. Too many, obviously, but how many too many?

Yes, impossible to prove beyond all doubt; but there are strong and reasonable grounds for believing the accusation. And, in many important matters, strong and reasonable grounds are all we ever have. You are setting the evidential bar high, so you can say the accusations don’t meet it and so can be dismissed.

On the old labour = communists so Tory = Hitler thing, it’s worth remembering that Hitler espoused far more socialism than liberal policies. Economically and wider. Like labour now, Hitler wanted control of the economy, of education a “big state”.

It’s one of the left’s best tricks to link Hitler to what is popularly called the political right.

Instead of left and right we should talk of big state v small state. Then we’d see whose policies Hitler’s were closest to.

Hitler was absolutely a socialist and claimed it publicly many times. His socialism however was different from contemporaneous socialists and those who today call themselves “liberal” in that its benefits were to be shared only with those who openly displayed the correct spectrum of approved viewpoints, and sought to marginalize, exclude, and ultimately destroy those who disagreed.

BoM4 – Actually, you could probably leave the jew killing in and they’d be fine.

Yarp. Stalin wasn’t fond of The Jews (his main internal rivals).

IIRC, right up till the end of the Soviet Union, Jews were the only group allowed to emigrate. Not sure if this made them a privileged caste or a pariah in the USSR – maybe a bit of both?

As we know, the USSR wasn’t, in practice, significantly less racist than Nazi Germany. They just claimed to be anti-racist while ethnically cleansing and murdering entire population groups. Worth remembering that, to the Left, words are magic.

Today’s Left loudly claims to be”anti-racist” while constantly attacking and spreading blood libels about “white men”, and the government of the United Kingdom now thinks it’s a good idea to commission “racial audits” while Her Majesty’s Opposition openly calls for a solution to the “problem” of “too many” successful white men in business and the judiciary…

Stalin wasn’t against Jews so much as he was against any successful group of people who had a different power base.
Jews were one of those groups. There were others.
Well educated people that didn’t fully support him, people with wealth, people that had their own networks – yes that’s talking about the Jews again.
He also didn’t like successful military people… but not as much dislike as he had of unsuccessful military people who failed the state….

Stalin wasn’t against Jews so much as he was against any successful group of people who had a different power base.

Definitely. The one principle Comrade Stalin consistently applied throughout his life was what suited Comrade Stalin in his quest to acquire and consolidate unlimited power. Stalin was the architect of the 20th century, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill and co. were either his catspaws or mere bit players in comparison.

He was functionally anti-Semitic because he took over a party/state machinery that was dominated by Jews at the top levels and he, a Georgian, wasn’t part of the in-tribe. (Hitler, otoh, was ideologically anti-Semitic)

But… it hardly matters what his motives were, right? It’s the outcomes that matter.

Interesting parallel between Stalin and our own Man of Rust, Jeremy Corbyn.

* Both were outsiders who managed to capture the leadership via cunning/luck.

* Both found themselves in a power struggle with Jewry (though poor Jez is being criticised more vociferously than Joseph ever was)

Not sure what this comparison tells us, but we should probably beware of any Corbynite maneuvers to nationalise Butlins.

Yet we all know the Russian line on the Skripal killers is pathetic bollocks, and the whole thing was set up to be discovered as a middle finger to the UK and encouragement for any spook who dare in future cross Putin.

So is that really the only way UKIP can get its remaining message out in these heady days of the freewheeling internet? It’s not as if our genial host doesn’t have a vehicle approrpiate for, and presumably at least some residual symathies for, Mr Farage?

“As we know, the USSR wasn’t, in practice, significantly less racist than Nazi Germany. They just claimed to be anti-racist while ethnically cleansing and murdering entire population groups. Worth remembering that, to the Left, words are magic”

I think I’ve mentioned this on here before, but for new readers. Straight after Zimbabwe’s independence I was sent to teach at their School of Signals as part of a small British Army team (18 IIRC) helping to integrate the various forces. In my class I had four ex guerrillas/terrorists/freedom fighters (ymmv) who’d been to training camps near Moscow. They told me that they would be spat at, have bananas thrown at them with accompanying monkey noises as they walked down the street. The instructors in the camps were no better. For all that they were staunch communists!

And then there is today’s linkage between Iran and Corbyn; he’s appeared several times on its state-run TV station (and was paid). I am sure M16 would have a splendid old time digging into any other financial dealings between Tehran and the LP today. This link explains some of the anti-Israel stuff, of course.

But the problem is not just this: too many Tories in the past were happy to make bucks out of the Saudis (Jonathan Aitken, etc).